York Region saw 32 per cent of GTA’s real estate investment in 2017

Region’s real estate investment volumes reached about $2.2 billion in 2017

Yorkregion.com
November 16, 2018
Dina Al-Shibeeb

York Region’s land transactions and dollar investments totalled $2.2 billion in 2017, constituting about 32 per cent of the total GTA volume, which reached $6.8 billion, according to real estate firm CBRE.

CBRE’s data, which didn’t include land transactions smaller than one acre, showed York Region’s total real estate investment increased by more than 44 per cent in 2017 compared to 2016, when the volume reached about $971 million.

However, the region’s 2018 data shows a major dip compared to 2017, when investment volume totalled about $652 million.

“Sometimes it is difficult to see month to month, year to year, quarter to quarter as one or two deals can skew the numbers,” Mike Czestochowski, CBRE Canada’s executive vice-president for land services, explained.

“So we do have to look have to look at the overall trend over five to 10 years.”

When looked at over that period, York Region has seen a big upward trend, given that CBRE’s data for 2008 shows the region saw about $489 in real estate investment.

“York Region is one of the fastest growing regions, so the trend is going to continue,” Czestochowski said. “York Region has the benefit not only having new immigrants and people wanting to settle here, but having a lot of land for development.”

As Toronto’s market continues to get more saturated and “gets more expensive,” he added.

“People are pushing into York Region, and they have been for the past 20 years.”

The bulk of investment in 2017, at more than $1 billion, was in low density housing projects.

Medium density projects accounted for $707 million, while high density was at $282 million.

That's dramatically different from Toronto, scarce land means high density condo tower projects dominate.

Land prices have increased dramatically between 2008 and 2018 with the average prices for low density projects per acre jumping as high as $1.8 million from $474,899. For medium density, prices have climbed to $3 million per acre from $568,782, while high density prices have shot up to $41.60 per square foot from $12.

The penchant for more low or medium density development dominates East Gwillimbury, King and Georgina where there was no reported investment in high density projects between 2008 and 2018.

Newmarket, however, has seen a bit of a resurgence in high density projects starting in 2016 and 2018, which saw almost $12 million and $16 million invested in those years respectively.

Aurora also saw more than $9 million pumped into high density projects in 2018 and $8 million the year before.

That could herald change for these municipalities, which for a long time held onto that "small town" feel.

“Aurora and Newmarket are just coming now. We’ve seen it along the Yonge corridor in Richmond Hill, high density does pretty well,” Czestochowski. “So certainly, Richmond Hill has it, Markham has it, Vaughan has it, it has done well in these areas where townhouses have gotten very unaffordable, in excess of one million dollars. So we will see the trend to continue in the north.”